Batemans Brewery A new website crafted for a beloved Lincolnshire beer brand
Batemans sought to revamp its website and enhance its digital marketing strategy to better engage with its diverse audience and drive business growth.
Written by Julian Havenhand
Sesquicentennial is not a term we often hear in the context of business longevity, so Optima was delighted to be asked to create a website to help celebrate Batemans Brewery's 150th year.
Established in 1874 in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, it is a beloved family-run brewery in its fourth generation. Known for its traditional craft beers, rich heritage, and popular pubs, Batemans has a long history of innovation. The 150th anniversary emphasises the brewery’s legacy and dedication to brewing excellence. When Batemans Brewery approached us, it was a significant opportunity to work with a brand we've long admired. We aimed to leverage our design, web development, and digital marketing expertise to impact their business significantly.
Our approach began with understanding the market.
We thoroughly researched Batemans' market, customer profiles, and competition. This comprehensive understanding allowed us to develop data-driven strategies rather than relying solely on intuition.
Batemans has a wide range of offline and online audiences, which presents numerous marketing opportunities. However, this diversity also complicates the task of creating a concise website structure. We devised a more streamlined sitemap to reflect this complexity and create user journeys for different audience types.
One of the main challenges was to showcase the vast array of offerings on one website. Batemans provides cottage rentals, camping, event venues, weddings, guided brewery tours, tastings, and multiple pubs serving food and ales. Our website design needed to present all these services clearly and intuitively.
Our team focused on creating a new website that clearly and intuitively showcases all of Batemans' commercial offerings. We prioritised user experience, ensuring the site is sleek, beautiful, and easy to navigate, especially on mobile devices. Utilising our digital marketing skills, we crafted targeted SEO campaigns to increase engagement and drive more digital traffic. By creating thoughtful and engaging content, we aimed to boost sales conversions.
Utilising our digital marketing skills, we crafted targeted SEO campaigns to increase engagement and drive more digital traffic. By creating thoughtful and engaging content, we aimed to boost sales conversions.
Despite the challenges posed by the post-pandemic environment, including rising energy prices, supply chain issues, and recruitment difficulties, Batemans Brewery is flourishing.
Our collaborative efforts have led to:
- More engaging content
- Smoother digital interfaces
- Increased digital traffic
- Higher sales conversions
After extensive discussions and weighing up the pros and cons, Batemans requested that the refreshed website would possess a new domain name which reflected the brand and business better. Our digital marketing team carefully strategised for this significant change. Such activities were carefully thought out and executed precisely to the plan to ensure the impact on organic search and visibility was limited. Our strategies ensured the authority of the old site was passed over to the new site.
Our team undertook a comprehensive approach to maintain the domain authority, traffic, and rankings during this transition. Firstly, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the existing site structure, backlinks, and content to identify critical elements that needed to be preserved.
We then implemented a meticulous 301 redirect strategy, ensuring that every valuable page from the old domain redirected seamlessly to its corresponding page on the new domain. This step was crucial in maintaining the link equity and preventing any loss of traffic.
Furthermore, we updated all on-site elements, including internal links, to reflect the new domain. We also communicated the change to major search engines through updated sitemaps and by using the change of address tool in Google Search Console. This ensured that search engines recognised and indexed the new domain correctly and swiftly.
Additionally, our team closely monitored the transition, regularly checking for any crawl errors or dips in rankings and traffic. We leveraged data-driven insights to make any necessary adjustments promptly.
Please get in touch with us if you want to learn more about how we can help your business grow through innovative website development and digital marketing strategies.
